Thursday, March 29, 2012

Like a weaver I have rolled up my life....

Our year in Canada ends next week, a year to the day after after we flew into YVR. We are frantically divesting ourselves of our possessions accrued here, as we must leave with the same four bags we came with (OK we'll ship out the skis we bought here, but you get the idea).

We sold off some things we had acquired over the year at a garage sale (boy are Persians hard bargainers!). The rest of the stuff goes to friends here who can use it or charity shops and much of the household stuff will go to the boys' swimming coach who is setting up in his first apartment away from his mom and dad when he starts his postgrad studies this Fall. At least that's one trip to Ikea he won't have to make.

As a spiritual exercise it has much to commend it:

"This?" "Don't need it" "This?" "Superfluous""What about this?" "No".

This stripping ourselves of our material possessions and saying goodbye to the people we have grown to know and love here is (and I am not over-dramatising, I hope) akin to the process many of my patients go through when they know they are dying.

5 Comments:

I remember when we moved to Oz and everything we owned that wasn't in 4 suitcases and 4 pieces of hand luggage went into a shipping container. Part of me would have been relieved if the ship had gone down! The books, the CDs, the crystal glasses etc. We buy them, we store them, we pack them, we ship them, we insure them, but rarely do we ever actually use them! Hope the move goes well.